A federal appeals court has rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to use a 1798 law to swiftly deport Venezuelan immigrants he labeled members of a violent transnational gang.
A divided three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said Trump had failed to justify claims that the Venezuelans targeted by his declaration had mounted an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against the United States at the direction of the Venezuelan government. Without meeting that requirement, Trump cannot deploy the little-used wartime law, known as the Alien Enemies Act, the panel concluded.
The judges issued an injunction barring the Trump administration from using the law to deport any alleged members of the gang — known as Tren de Aragua or TdA — who are being held in northern Texas.
The decision follows a series ofother rulings from federal district judges around the country who have similarly rejected Trump’s declaration that there is an invasion or incursion.
“TdA was not the kind of organized force or engaged in the kind of actions necessary to constitute an invasion or predatory incursion,” Judge Leslie Southwick wrote for the 5th Circuit panel’s majority.
Southwick emphasized that many other laws would give Trump the power to seek deportation of the alleged gang members. “It may well be that these and other peacetime tools are not so quickly utilized as the Alien Enemies Act, but the Government has substantial authority to remove TdA members independent of [the Alien Enemies Act],” Southwick wrote.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Actin March, alleging that the regime of Nicolas Maduro had deployed members of Tren de Aragua to the United States to destabilize the country. Within hours, federal immigration authorities deported 130 people the administration claimed were members of Tren de Aragua to a prison in El Salvador.
Lawyers for some of those men — as well as other men targeted but not yet deported — sued, claiming they had been wrongly identified and deprived of a chance to contest their deportation, triggering legal battles in federal courts across the country.
The Supreme Court has weighed in several times on an emergency basis. On April 7, the high court concluded that the Trump administration had failed to provide adequate due process to those targeted under the Alien Enemies Act, but the justices took no position on whether Trump’s invocation was legitimate. At the same time, the justices concluded that the men challenging the Trump administration’s deportation efforts had to file petitions in the districts where they were being held by immigration authorities, ending a bid by many of them to consolidate their challenge in Washington, D.C.
Later in April, the Supreme Court issued a highly unusual, middle-of-the-night order temporarily blocking the administration from carrying out another round of hasty deportations. That block and other lower-court rulings have prevented Trump from continuing to use the Alien Enemies Act after the initial round of expulsions to El Salvador.
The panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit is the first appellate court to rule on Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act since the Supreme Court’s intervention. The Trump administration can appeal the panel’s ruling to the full bench of the 5th Circuit — which is typically considered the most conservative appeals court in the country — or take the issue back up to the Supreme Court.
The majority opinion written by Southwick, an appointee of George W. Bush, was joined in part by Judge Irma Ramirez, a Biden appointee. Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump appointee, wrote a blistering 131-page dissent, accusing his colleagues of disrespecting Trump’s authority.
“Today the majority holds that President Trump is just an ordinary civil litigant. His declaration of a predatory incursion is not conclusive. Far from it,” Oldham wrote. “Rather, President Trump must plead sufficient facts — as if he were some run-of-the-mill plaintiff in a breach-of-contract case — to convince a federal judge that he is entitled to relief.”
“That contravenes over 200 years of legal precedent. And it transmogrifies the least-dangerous branch into robed crusaders who get to playact as multitudinous Commanders in Chief,” Oldham continued.
Ramirez partially dissented from the ruling as well, contending that those challenging Trump’s designation under the Alien Enemies Act should have 21 days to take legal action, rather than the seven the Trump administration currently says is sufficient.
Southwick said he would not disturb the administration’s seven-day minimum notice based on the current record.